Cruising

When ticks become hungry for blood
it is called questing: they climb and climb
thick trees, tall grasses, hairy bushes,

because they don’t have wings or legs
strong enough to leap onto their prey,
so they reach out from a great height

and hope they are caught before they fall.
It might seem funny to say that ticks have prey
when they are so small. But a single bite

has the potential for massive change: there’s
the disease which causes anaphylaxis
after ingesting meat and other byproducts

of mammals. As I overhear crickets chirping
in their polyrhythmic spree, I can still see
the discarded sperm dropping from the leaves.